Iran, Middle East | featured news

President Barack Obama declared on Tuesday the United States will "do what we must" to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against threatening attacks whose consequences would be devastating.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday disregarded a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric and declared ahead of the annual General Assembly session that Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated."

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney traded shots in high-profile interviews with Romney saying Obama hasn't supported Israel strongly enough and Obama asking if Romney was trying to start a war in the region.

A senior commander in Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region in the event of war with Israel, raising the prospect of a broader conflict that would force other countries to get involved, Iranian state television reported Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his case on Iran directly to U.S. voters Sunday, telling the American public in televised interviews that the White House must be willing to draw a “red line” on Tehran’s nuclear program, comparing Tehran’s nuclear program to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and reminding Americans of the devastating repercussions of failed intelligence.

Iran says explosives cut electric power lines to an underground enrichment plant last month.

The United States and its allies have launched a major naval exercise in the Gulf that they say shows a global will to keep oil shipping lanes open as Israel and Iran trade threats of war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Iran would be on the brink of nuclear weapons capability in six to seven months, adding new urgency to his demand that President Barack Obama set a clear "red line" for Tehran in what could deepen the worst U.S.-Israeli rift in decades.

Iraq's government has given foreign diplomats a rare look inside a refugee camp housing Iranian exiles, as Baghdad seeks international help resettling them in another country.

Iran will hold a large-scale military drill involving all its air defense systems next month, an Iranian commander was quoted as saying on Saturday, one of a number of military simulations it has carried out this year.